Being the watchman of a fort in the middle of nowhere can be a lonely job, so Lawrence Borg would take his beloved birds to keep him company during his 12-hour shifts.

I almost fainted. I thought to myself: I’ll never see my birds again

As the years passed, he started leaving his birds at work.

Two years ago, a few hours after his shift at Fort Ricasoli in Kalkara officially ended at 7pm, he returned for a random inspection as there was no one to cover the night shift.

He realised that some rooms had been broken into, including the room where he kept his 80 birds.

“I almost fainted. I thought to myself: ‘I’ll never see my birds again’,” the 50-year-old from Vittoriosa recalled as he pointed to the room from where they were stolen.

They included hawfinches, greenfinches, goldfinches and a barn owl, some worth over €150. The thieves also took gas cylinders used for special effects in films.

Mr Borg filed a police report and officers tracked down the culprits through the fort’s CCTV footage. Within a few days he had most of his birds back but since then he has never taken them to the fort, fearing they would no longer be safe.

“I miss them… they were good company during the long shifts.”

Last week two men admitted stealing nine gas cylinders and €1,300 worth of birds and were sentenced to 40 hours community service and a one-year probation order.

The day officers returned the owl to Mr Borg, they asked how he could prove they were his. He challenged them to release it from a distance.

“It flew directly to my son who was near me. We had raised it since it was a chick,” he said, adding that the owl was now with his daughter.

Mr Borg inherited his passion from his grandparents and passed it to his son. As he points to his car where three birds, in individual cages, are protected from the cold on the heated vehicle’s back seat, it is clear that, to him, they are family.

“I buy them to enjoy them, not to sell. I only give them to people who I know will care for them,” he said, adding he now has only eight birds from the original 80.

“I spend lots of time with them. I take them out in my car. I even carry them around in my arms. People must think I’m an idiot. But this is a passion I’ll never get out of my system. I just wish that the Government safeguards this passion by allowing trapping – even if we have to pay a high licence fee,” he said.